PUNE: Tech Mahindra unveiled the Makers Lab last month — an in-house laboratory for employees to experiment and work on new technology. Chief technology officer Atul Kunwar said it is a step towards the consumer. “A lot of ideas are developed or built in conjunction with customers or partners at Makers Lab. We are taking this global and over time would want to see it become more cloud-oriented,” Kunwar told ET.

Tech Mahindra is the latest in a series of IT firms to set up a lab or a digital experience centre (DEC), where it can showcase current solutions, experiment with emerging technologies like augmented and virtual reality and work with clients to co-create solutions. Earlier this year, Intelenet Global Services set up a similar experience centre at its Mumbai headquarters, with plans to open another one in Delhi shortly.

IGS chief information officer Rajendra Deshpande said, “The biggest challenge for BPOs is to demonstrate end-to-end journey of transactions and business scenarios in a very simplified and secure way since each client area is secured. DEC is a way to go beyond demonstration and create floor experience, and is designed in a manner to showcase the capabilities possible in any vertical seamlessly.”

Visualising businesses five to 10 years down the line in an environment where clients can interact with the technologies and get a sense of how these will work, can be a huge help when trying to sell something new.

Professional services firm PwC, which recently set up a DEC in Bengaluru, has similar centres across the world. Ashootosh Chand, leader-digital at PwC, said, “Initially, there was a lot of interest from industries with end user connect like banking, retail and insurance. Soon, though, we started seeing demand from manufacturing, transport and other sectors. Digital is a way of life for everyone and this is being driven by CXOs, with the centre seeing threefour CXO visits every week.”

The focus here is on helping co-create solutions to customer problems, something that has helped drive business growth.

“The centre is a means of revenue generation for us. Many a time, customers wouldn’t have thought of doing something if they hadn’t come to the centre and it helps generate new business,” Chand said.

This helps justify the investments these centres entail. Deshpande said that a centre such as this would cost nearly Rs 1.5 crore to set up.

Kunwar said, “It’s not only actual cost of infrastructure but also counter-intuitive to put a resource who could be making money for you today but you are counting on him being a force multiplier in the future.”

An added advantage is working with clients on how to use new technology takes away some of the risk involved in coming up with a brilliant solution that might not find too many takers. Digital services firm Atos is setting up experience centres in Pune and Bengaluru as part of its three-year plan for more focus on certain business areas such as cloud and SAP HANA.

RV Narasimham, the company’s head of global delivery centres, consulting and system integration said, “We have a network of innovation centres across the world and we want the same here. As we build depth and prototype, the client can also come in, see demos and contribute ideas. It would be an interactive centre and we’ll have a team who can build those ideas virtually and co-innovate.”

Atos is keen to tap into experts irrespective of their physical location depending on the nature of the project, with virtual collaboration being an important part of these centres.